Happiness Index at Workplace – An Indicator to Help Job Seekers for Making Career Decisions

Who does not want a happy workplace? Increasing Happiness index is a pre-cursor to productive workers. Nowadays, Workplace Happiness Index has become a valuable indicator to help job seekers make informed career decisions.

There are various factors which are perceived to be contributing to Happiness at Workplace. All these factors can be classified into four groups:
a) Satisfaction: It captures the basic hygiene of work, the need and expectation of employees which includes salary, job stability, fairness, work-life balance.
b) Alignment: This element mainly captures the work culture of the organization. It checks the trust and support employees receive from their supervisors, the cultural openness, the teamwork, etc.
c) Engagement: This element measures how much an employee loves his/her work. It checks if the employee is receiving autonomy with his/her work, the learning opportunities, performance evaluation and feedback, etc.
d) Well-being: This element measures the psychological aspect of the employees, their strengths and alignment with their job. It looks into the resilience, significance of their role, optimism, etc.

The Global Workforce Happiness Index uses the following factors for scoring:

1. Employee satisfaction
2. An employee’s willingness to recommend a current employer
3. An employee’s likelihood to switch jobs in the near future (2-4 years)

There are various surveys which measure the happiness index such as World Happiness Report, the Happy Planet Index and the OECD Better Life Index, however there are no surveys which measure specific context of workplace. But, there are some surveys which assess the job satisfaction of employees. The main job satisfaction measurements are: The Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and the Job Descriptive Index (JDI). the-happiness-index.com have laid down nine tips to build a happy and productive workforce for workplace engagement to increase happiness index at workplace:
1) Create a welcoming environment
2) Empower people to improve company culture
3) Provide flexibility for work-life balance
4) Demonstrate transparency
5) Communicate regularly
6) Provide opportunities for growth
7) Focus on social investments
8) Motivate people to leave their comfort zones
9) Encourage time-off

Let us increase the workplace happiness index.

About Author: Dr.Vibhor Mishra is a Management Consultant, Educationalist, Corporate Trainer by profession. His master’s degree in Management with specialization in Marketing and International Business transformed him as a qualified strategic marketing professional from a street smart sales professional. He extended his learning horizons by holding PhD in ‘Brand Management’ under guidance of IIM Lucknow. He has experience of more than 20 years in the area of Consumer Durable Sales, Strategies in Branding, Managing Start-UP Projects, Training, Government Sponsored Research, Management Teaching, Consultancy and creating Business Development Models.

Dr. Vibhor Mishra has been nominee of ‘National Award’ for one of his sponsored research projects by Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India. He has successfully completed government sponsored research projects worth INR 42,00,000 as principle investigator/project head.

​Dr. Vibhor Mishra is a passionate management consultant. He is committed to create cutting edge, problem solving management solutions by connecting cross functional strengths, leading to innovative ‘Business Process Engineered’ models for SMEs and Start UPs. He has supported more than twelve National and international brands, eighteen ‘Small and Medium Enterprises’ and twenty five ‘Start UPs’ in achieving​ desired objectives.